TITHING 105: THE TROUBLE WITH TITHING

THE TROUBLE WITH TITHING

The primary duty of Christian people is to spread the fragrance of the gospel of Jesus Christ and to help men comprehend gospel truths so that they might be saved from eternal damnation. Satan knows this very well and thus seeks to frustrate these efforts. One leading means of doing this is to ensure that the gospel that is preached is an incomplete one. This gospel occupies a middle line between falsehood and truth, thus making it difficult for undiscerning folks to realize its true nature. The greatest harm this sort of gospel does is that it does not bring people to saving knowledge of Christ Jesus. God has ordained that men will be saved as they listen to the preached word on Christ and His crucifixion (Romans 1:16a; 10:8,9). When this word is perverted, what it produces are weak Christians at best and false brethren at worst. This is  the reason why along with preaching the gospel to the unsaved, the Christian church must continually check the truth in the messages it preaches to ensure that it is not being mixed with untruth and in the process loose its saving power. The Spirit of Jesus is the one who takes the word preached and turns it into faith in the heart of the listener, thereby leading to his redemption in Christ. When this message is perverted there are no conversions in the church. What we might call conversions that follow some evangelistic preaching is found eventually to lack true depth. This is the trouble with the gospel that has tithing at its foundation. That gospel is the prosperity gospel.

Tithing and the Prosperity Gospel

Much has been written on the prosperity message and this essay shall not be doing a thorough academic work on it. Rather, I shall be showing how the doctrine of tithing is at the root of the prosperity gospel and how it helps fund it. The statement below by David Prior in his book BEDROCK helps us with something close to a definition for the prosperity teaching:

There is a growing welter of teaching in certain circles who reject (the doctrine of shame and suffering in the gospel). Success, health, happiness, prosperity are all seen as expected rights for the children of God’s kingdom. This prosperity-teaching gains numerous adherents precisely because it panders to our lower nature. It represents what we want to hear, not what we need to hear. It appeals to two kinds of Christian in particular – to those who enjoy a fairly affluent standard of living and need to rationalize or justify it; and it has understandable attraction for those who have been deprived of life’s good things and feel they deserve a better deal. When we realize that most Christians are included within these two groupings, we can appreciate the popularity of such teaching… Its most serious aspect, however, is the way it undercuts the very foundation of the Gospel of God’s grace. At no stage do we deserve anything from God; everything we have is a gift of his love, completely undeserved. From beginning to end, from our justification to our glorification, we depend on the grace of God who, out of his great love and mercy, constantly loads us with daily benefits.

The gospel of prosperity teaches that Christ has secured both a physical and spiritual redemption for all who believe. The physical redemption will include redemption from poverty and sickness. The spiritual redemption will include redemption from sin, with eternal life for all who believe. A close examination of this gospel reveals that most individuals who preach this dual nature of the gospel spend greater time emphasizing the physical redemption at the expense of the spiritual. The argument is that the needs of most people are physical; and when these are met, the spiritual follows. The means to meeting these physical means is the blessing – God’s blessing. The story is that God is ready to bless anyone who believes as long as they obey biblical commands. What then is this command?

10 Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.

Tithing is taught as the means to obtaining God’s blessings of health and wealth. If you tithe all shall be well with you and if you do not tithe all shall be tight for you, the prosperity preacher bellows. Like David Prior stated earlier, when we realize that the majority of Christian folks are either rich or very poor we understand why this sort of message affects a lot of Christian folks. In one hand, we have a number of Christians who are trying to make a financial breakthrough and who see tithing as their means of doing this. On the other hand, we see a number of Christians who are financially secured; tithing becomes for them a means of consolidating this position.

The trouble with all these is that the gospel that Jesus Christ passed unto His disciples does not make these kinds of promises. There is nowhere in the whole of New Testament where health and wealth is promised as required rights for Christian believers. There is nowhere in the New Testament where tithing is seen as a means of obtaining these rights or blessings. There is nowhere in the New Testament where a Christian is seen to be tithing or doing any other thing, outside prayers and simple faith in God, to secure blessings. The reason why the gospel of prosperity and the practice of tithing thrive so much in our times is because very few people truly understand the gospel of Jesus Christ and the grace of God that came with it; and even among those who understand it, very few people preach it.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ

The gospel of Jesus Christ was foreshadowed in the Old Testament and became a reality in the New (Colossians 2:17). The God of all creation made a good world but sin crept into it through our first parents. At that time God had spoken of man’s redemption from the reign of Satan when he said the seed of the woman would bruise the serpent’s head. In the opening chapters of the New Testament, the gospel is preached in a summary form:

20 But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife:  for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.   21 And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS:  for he shall save his people from their sins – Matthew 1:20-21

The gospel of Jesus Christ is God’s redeeming works in Jesus Christ to save men from their sins. This was what God was doing when he killed a lamb, shedding blood (Hebrew 9:22), to cloth Adam and Eve when they sinned. This was what God was doing in instituting the various Levithical offerings and sacrifices under the Laws of Moses. And this was what God was doing when He put His only begotten Son on a Roman Cross and placed the sins of the whole world on Him.

6 For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.   7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die:  yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.   8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.   9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.   10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.   11 And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.   12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin;  and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:  13 (For until the law sin was in the world:  but sin is not imputed when there is no law.   14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.   15 But not as the offence, so also is the free gift.   For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.   16 And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift:  for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification.   17 For if by one man's offence death reigned by one;  much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.) 18 Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation;  even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. – Romans 5

The death of Jesus Christ has secured our justification before God. We were men and women condemned as sinners before an absolutely holy God. In the cross of Jesus Christ we are justified. We are declared “not guilty”; our sins have been covered; we are declared righteous. We are the very righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. Halleluyah!!!

The death of Jesus Christ has also secured our eternal home in God. We are children of God – pilgrim on this earth, that have no eternal home here. We have been saved from hell; and secured to heaven. This is no means fit; it is the blessing of the cross that cannot be lost because it was secured on the merit of Jesus Christ and not on our own merit (John 6:39).

The death of Jesus Christ is working out our sanctification. When a man places faith in the Son of God, he receives the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God comes into us to be our instructor, our guide, our purifier and our sanctifier. Because He is absolutely holy, he begins to teach us and work into us the very nature of God and His holiness. So that Christ’s work on the cross begins to manifest in us in two dimensions. First he secures our salvation; then He continually works out our salvation in us. The whole process of our sanctification is what calls the believer to submit to the cross of God that is given to us through Jesus Christ.

If the Son of God Himself learnt obedience by the things He suffered (Hebrew 5:8), none of us shall be immune to suffering. Christ Himself gave us a picture of what it means to endure the cross – it is not what any man wills to do (Matthew 26:39). It comes through the sovereign dictates of God in heaven. This leads us ultimately to the concept of the Sovereignty of God. God is sovereign and He is working out everything in this world to bring His good purposes to pass. It is in the context of the sovereign works of God in the lives of all believers that we submit to whatever cross God might bring our way, knowing that there is a God who work out everything for our good (Romans 8:28; Hebrew 12:16). God utilizes a host of things to bring about the Christian’s sanctification; any of those things can be trial that has to do with our health or wealth. This is where the so called gospel that teaches that faith in God secures health and wealth comes into conflict with gospel of Jesus Christ.

Tithing as an Anti-thesis to the Gospel

For us to understand how tithing is an anti-thesis to the gospel of Christ we must go back to why Paul and the leading apostles of his time resisted the Jews from imposing circumcision on gentiles. Like tithing, circumcision was carried out by the Jewish patriarchs and was also found in the Laws Moses gave to Israel. Nonetheless, the apostles of the Lamb insisted that the gentiles shall not be burdened with this practice.

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1 And certain men which came down from Judaea taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved …   5 But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed, saying, That it was needful to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses. 6 And the apostles and elders came together for to consider of this matter.   7 And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up, and said unto them, Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe.   8 And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us;  9 And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.   10 Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?  11 But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they…   13 And after they had held their peace, James answered, saying, Men and brethren, hearken unto me: …   19 Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God:  20 But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood…28 For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things;  29 That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication:  from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well.   Fare ye well… - Acts 15

The trouble with circumcision was not the act itself but what it was meant to achieve. The position of the false brethren in the scriptures above was that circumcision was a means to salvation and right standing before God, which the apostles disagreed with. Peter, in his statement, shows us the pertinent things in regards to our salvation. He says that God knows the heart – so the Christian’s faith is heart thing and not one of external rituals. It would require repentance towards God, which only God can acknowledge and forgive. What follows is God purifying the heart and filling the saints with the Holy Ghost. Paul, in his numerous epistles, will explain this as the whole process that follows our being justified by faith. In Galatians 3, where he was still discussing circumcision, he showed us that the way into the Christian walk was by faith and the path through it was all by faith – a faith that works by love.

6 Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.   7 Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.   8 And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.   9 So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham… 1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.   2 Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.   3 For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law.   4 Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law;  ye are fallen from grace.   5 For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.   6 For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision;  but faith which worketh by love. (Galatians 3 and 5)

The thesis that the gospel presented to the sinner is this: believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved (Acts16:31). This thesis also includes the fact that the Christian believer has right standing with God and enjoys the very righteousness of God, all by faith (2 Corinthians5:21; Romans 3:22). This thesis states that the Christian believer has peace with God (Romans 5:1) and can enjoy this peace practically (John 16:33). And finally, in response to all that God has done for the Christian, the gospel calls us present all of our lives to God as a living sacrifice, in holiness and righteousness (Romans 12:1-2).

Circumcision, and by extension tithing, nullifies the entire thesis stated above. Tithing and circumcision are major bedrocks of the laws of Moses. The mark of being a Jew was circumcision – which was a physical mark wrought on the foreskin of a man. The gospel transcended this mere physical manifestation by seeing to it that our circumcision was now that wrought in the heart. And anyone who goes further to prove his spiritual circumcision by carrying out a physical one was calling God a liar and not walking by faith. This act of circumcision was rendering the gospel useless. The same thing goes with tithing. Tithing was the means of sustaining the Levithical priesthood who were the holders of the law. With the death and burial of Christ, the law has been abrogated and changed. The Levithical priesthood is no longer in force. Therefore to tithe today is to try to restore what God Himself had abrogated. It is to begin to walk by sight and not by faith; it is to return to the law for justification and right standing; it is to fall from the grace of the cross and to render Christ’s work there useless – for Christ shall profit he that tithes nothing (Galatians 5:1-4). This is the grave situation the church has found herself and this is the reason the whole practice of tithing must be addressed. If people are tithing to be acceptable to God and to enjoy some form of right standing, they have fallen from His grace and are under his curse and wrath.

Conclusion

The gospel of Jesus Christ invites the sinner to a liberty of the spirit. This is the liberty that the practice of circumcision and tithing denies the Christian. The gospel invites us all to know God for ourselves. Learn to hear Him in His word and learn to obey Him. The liberty of the spirit is what will permit us to do only as we are “led by God’s Holy Spirit” and not because we are following church laws or the Laws of Moses. The liberty of the spirit is what will permit Paul to circumcise Timothy, while at the same time instructing the Galatian churches not to allow themselves to be circumcised by anyone. The liberty of the spirit is what true gospel living call us into and this is what tithing denies people. A man may enjoy the liberty of the spirit and be led to give a tenth of his income to support a certain Christian work; but as long as it is peculiar to Him alone, and he does not impose it on anyone, he is not doing anything wrong.

It is the liberty of the spirit that makes sinners listen to the gospel and consider it content. It is this liberty that makes him bow his heart in repentance and faith to receive the Savior. It is this perfect liberty that he enjoys as he comes into communion with the risen Lord and serves Him in the fullness of the spirit. This liberty should never be denied any child of God and this liberty is what is being denied God’s people when they are called to tithe. God calls us to stand fast in the liberty that Christ has made us free when we became born-again; we should never be entangled with the yoke of bondage – especially the bondage of tithing.

PREDATORS AND PRODUCERS

PREDATORS AND PRODUCERS

10 Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep:  11 So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man – Proverbs 6

10 For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat – 2 Thessalonians 3

Following the defeat of the Japanese at the Second World War and the subsequent commitment of western nations to help build this war torn country, the Japanese people channeled their inherent work ethics to rebuilding their country. The result was that by the 1980s Japan had become a world economic power and one of the most productive countries that ever existed. The other side of this story was that the average Japanese was working too much, taking very little vacation and many were dying from strokes and other related diseases. Karoshi is the name given by the Japanese to the situation in which an individual dies from overwork¹. Despite these unfortunate incidences

Overworked Japanese Workers: the cause of Karoshi

emanating from the Japanese success story, it is an established fact worldwide that what builds a nation and makes a people successful is their productivity. A consuming nation will end up preying on itself and becoming a failed state; a productive nation has the sky as its beginning. This article shall be analyzing the Nigerian story and we shall be endeavoring to point out what is inherently predatory in our society so that we may avoid them and then we shall extol the productive aspects of our nation so that we can encourage them. At the end of the story we hope that more and more Nigerians choose productive paths in every aspect of their lives for our nation to move forward.

The fact that a people are either predators or producers will determine whether they would be progressive or retrogressive. It is this writer’s honest observation that most Nigerians are predators², an unfortunate outcome of our nation’s possession of the black gold – oil. Prior to this country’s discovery of crude oil, agriculture was our leading source of revenue as a nation. Nigeria had its northern part producing groundnuts in such abundance that brought them so much wealth that the northerners were threatening cessation from the Nigerian state – a favorite refrain by the South-south in Nigeria today because of it's possession of crude oil which is the country’s main means of revenue today. In the south we had rubber and cocoa, and many Nigerians enjoyed great wealth from these agricultural products. These were days when Nigerians understood what hard work meant and saw how it brought wealth their way. With the discovery of oil in the 50s/60s and the coming of the “oil boom” in the 70s, agriculture waned and Nigerians began to enjoy a new found blessing. The Nigerian government understood that oil wealth should be used to develop other aspects of our national life, so as to enhance greater productivity in these places and thus ensure fast development of the country as a whole. This is what our government saw in other oil rich nations like the United States, Russia and middle eastern countries. The Nigerian government of Gowon and Muritala invested greatly in infrastructures and the building of public institutions. Those were the days in which Nigeria had such excellent road networks, power supply, hospitals, schools, etc. The result was supposed to be greater productivity of the Nigerian people that will lead to the rapid development of the nation. This had happened in countries like Brazil, Japan, and South Africa but the Nigerian situation failed because its people chose the path of being predators rather than productive. The predatory tendency of Nigerians began to increase when the rule of law declined and corruption ran riot in the nation.

Two leading predators in Nigeria today are her politicians and preachers. The Nigerian politician sees politics as the easiest way to wealth. The Nigerian politician invests

Ibori: a Nigerian Politician convicted by a British court

greatly in his political pursuit either from his personal wealth or from the wealth of a few political associates. When he gets to office he sees to it that every kobo he has invested is recouped. Those who may have helped him out financially during his campaign period are also adequately compensated. Politics in this country is primarily to serve self, family and friends; and only secondarily to serve the people. Because the ballot box does not work and because often enough elections are rigged and people’s votes do not count, the average Nigerian politician does not see himself elected to office by the people’s popular will and so he does not feel obligated to serve the people. Most times politicians come to office by rigging, which is usually accomplished by paying off a good number of people of position and means. These are the individual who then make the decision for him to come to power. They become his godfathers. When he is in office, he sees to it that his “investments” are recouped and that these men of means are properly “settled”. This is the making of the predatory nature of Nigerian politicians. One way to end this is to ensure that the Nigerian people’s votes count. This will happen if the electoral act is revamped and the process of selecting who heads the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is removed from the hands of the presidency, who himself is a politician, and put in the hand of an independent body like the National Judiciary Commission (NJC). Following this, the INEC must be truly committed to ensuring that the Nigerian people’s vote count and other government parastatals, particularly the police, must be committed to seeing that votes casted are protected up till the point when they are duly announced. Until the predatory nature of Nigerian politics is addressed, this nation will not be ready for any true development because genuine development cannot be divorced from well thought out political plans that are executed with firm political will.

Nigerian preachers, especially those of the Pentecostal genre, are becoming leading predators in this country. The predatory nature of these preachers stem from the kind of gospel they preach. This gospel which has come to be known as the health and wealth gospel or the Prosperity Gospel is gaining grounds among the Nigerian populace chiefly because these men take advantage of the widespread illiteracy in the land to sell to their listeners a superstitious belief in a God who is ready to lift a person out of sickness and poverty as long as that person gives him enough money through his representative who turns out to be the preacher, of course³. This version of the gospel is a corrupted version of the gospel of Jesus Christ as is recorded in the New Testament of the Holy Bible. This gospel sits very well with a Nigerian populace that is already reeling in poverty and its resultant effect of sickness and diseases. Corruption in the country has also divided the nation into two desperate camps of a few rich and a vast population of poor folks. The prosperity gospel tells the rich to give so as to secure his riches and informs the poor to give so as to become rich - at the end of the day it is the preacher that smiles to the bank. This giving takes up many forms but the leading one amongst them all is the giving of a mandatory 10% of one’s income that is called the tithes. The result is that leading preachers of the Pentecostal circle are about the richest men in the country. Many young men and even women, who happen to have some education (and sometime no education) are seeing preaching as an avenue to quick riches. Today, Nigerian towns will have hundreds of these churches in just a single location alone. Churches, in a said bid to evangelize the world, are outdoing themselves at opening new branches just to have members who in turn will bring tithes and offerings to them.

A close look at this scenario will show any careful observer that there is nothing productive about preaching to people to get health and wealth, who at the end of the day will not get any wealth except the person preaching. What brings wealth to a nation is not superstitious beliefs, regardless of their source, but plain hard work. Countries

like the United States got their stringent work ethics from reading the bible that teaches that a man who does not work will not eat. Other nations that are wealthy today may not have imitated the American people’s religion but they imitated their work ethic and are today the better of for it. This is the reason why nation that profess atheism, that are animistic and have beliefs far from those taught in the bible are reeling in wealth today. These countries have not taught their people a stupid belief that wealth will suddenly fall on the lap of an individual who gives enough to the god he worships. Nigerian Pentecostal churches are doing great disservice to the minds of our young people. What is essentially productive in a man who stands before a people for one hour and teaches them principles of wealth or some motivational jargon on Sunday morning but who at the end of the service have the people listening to him pour in tithes and offerings into an offertory basket? What exactly has this preacher produced that can be equated to the millions he reaps from these unsuspecting folks every Sunday? How does a nation develop when hundreds of its young people who are supposed to be using their youthful strength to work and be productive but whom instead opt for a “call to ministry” - opening up churches to further reap other unsuspecting people of their monies? What exactly does this kind of preaching produce? We know what Christ’s ministry did on earth. When Jesus Christ preached in first century Palestine, he spoke to the people about righteousness; about love; about helping the needy and the poor; Jesus preached a humanistic message and sort to better the live of the needy. Our Lord and Savior was very productive in his preaching because his preaching produced people of honest vocation who worked hard to provide for their families and for those who were poor. Today, much of the preaching we hear is anti-Christ because it despises the poor and exalts the rich; it seeks the comfort of Mr. Preacher; and it is not productive in anyway. Our young people need to know that there is no future for a country that is buried in an avalanche of superstitious beliefs, which despise hard work and seeks to gain riches the easy way.

Other predators in Nigeria will include "419ers" – people who seek to dupe others of their riches; religious fanatics, the leading one being the Boko Haram people who are literally preying on many innocent Nigerians lives in the north-eastern part of the country. We also have many corrupt government officials – some civil servants – who would never carry out the duties they are paid for except they are given a bribe. The Nigerian police can also be predatory atimes as they turn on the very people they are supposed to be protecting to collect bribes from them. And lastly, the Nigerian people do also prey on each other. The recent discovery of a den where human parts are traded to prospective buyers found in Soka, an Ibadan sub urban area, is proof of the fact that Nigerians also prey on themselves. Note however that the list of predators given here is in no way exhaustive

Despite the gloom that is painted here one must admit that there are a few Nigerian people who are honest in their work and are very productive in them. The first of these people are our technical workers – especially those mechanics, plumbers, hair dressers, tailors, factory workers, manufacturers, etc. There are also market women, business men and women, who are doing great work for themselves and earning good clean money. Although there is something essentially lopsided about an economy that is mainly retail. Everywhere you look in the Nigerian market, we find most people buying and selling; in fact too many times what is being sold is foreign. But this is a lot better than people who earn money from dubious ways. There are also the Nigerian farmers who work 24 hours, seven days a week through the rainy season to produce food for the very large Nigerian populace to eat. Recently, the market has begun to feel the effect of the Boko Haram insurgency with food items like beans and beef that come mainly from the northern part of the country, sky rocketing in prices. Nonetheless, the Nigerian farmer, who despite the weight of the import ridden Nigerian market and the oil sector, still labors to produce food for us all to buy and eat. These people are particularly to be praised. We also have young Nigerian graduate who are realizing that the so called white

The Nigerian Graduate that sells akara

collar jobs are virtually non-existent; these young men and women are venturing into all kinds of jobs to keep body and soul together. In the process they are contributing to the productive end of the country and they need to be encouraged. I was particularly touched by one young Nigerian graduate who uses his evening hours to fry and sell akara (beans cake). His story has become a source of inspiration to many⁴. I cannot conclude on Nigerian workers’ doing the nation proud by their productivity without mentioning the indefatigable civil servants, particularly Nigerian teachers who labor day and night, despite the pittance they are paid, to develop young and great minds. Indeed the Nigerian Teacher’s reward is in heaven and God shall ensure that they reap some of it here on earth. Lastly, Nigerian writers, especially those of the print and electronic media, must be commended for adding to the productivity of this country. Their critical voices, hidden in their write up, have helped fine tune or even change many hurtful government policies.

Despite a great number of Nigerian people laboring to ensure that this country works, we have a number of other people who will not involve themselves in any legitimate work and who are rendering the effort of others useless. Production is what creates wealth for a nation. Nigerians need to eschew the predatory culture and learn to do good works. We must imbibe in our national psyche and our moral fabric the principle of working hard; while those who earn illegitimate money must be punished to discourage others. Nigerians must begin to fight corruption themselves and not leave it to government establishments like the EFCC and the ICPC. We must understand that this is the only country we have and it is incumbent on us to make it work. A nation where predators exceed producers is tending towards a failed state. Providence has been very kind to this country in giving us so much as far as raw materials is concerned and that is why we have the crude oil. We must however get down on our knees and work the raw materials into finished goods and then help provide them for the citizens of this country, while we export others. This article is not espousing the Japanese Karoshi for our nationals, however, we should not kill our selves with another kind of karoshi called hunger which is what will certainly befall a people that refuse to work hard.

References

1.     The story on Karoshi can be found from Time Magazine of January 30 1989, page 51.

2.    A fine article had been written by a colleague on the consuming nature of the Nigerian people. You may read this story on this link http://bizlabel.blogspot.com/2014/04/anything-for-me.html

3.     This article did not do a thorough exposition on the errors of the prosperity gospel. Others have done it and their article are replete on the www.

4.   This story of Ayo Fatoki may be found on this link http://bizlabel.blogspot.com/2014/04/akara-ayo-written-by-segun-o-adio-and.html

TITHING 104: MALACHI 3:8-12

MALACHI 3:8-12

8 Will a man rob God?  Yet ye have robbed me.   But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee?  In tithes and offerings.   9 Ye are cursed with a curse:  for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation. 10 Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.   11 And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the LORD of hosts.   12 And all nations shall call you blessed:  for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the LORD of hosts.

In this essay I shall endeavor to show that the central scripture many use to justify Christians’ tithing today, Malachi 3:8-12, is not a message to the Christian church redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. I shall be showing that this scripture is an extension of the Mosaic Laws, laws that Christians are not obligated to keep in a dispensation of grace, and that anyone who tries to tithe as instructed in Malachi 3 is bringing himself under the curse of the law and if he does not keep all the law in the process, he has broken the law and is cursed rather than blessed. I will conclude by showing that those really robbing God are people who teach a concept of “monetary” tithing, saying that Christians must give a tenth of their income to churches – a doctrine that is no where taught in the whole bible.

Deuteronomy 26

Malachi 3 is not the first time God will be speaking about tithes in the Old Testament. Indeed when God gave the laws to Moses He gave clear cut instructions as to what the tithe was to be and whom it was to be given to in the books of Moses. One passage that is very similar to the Malachi 3: 8-12 passage is Deuteronomy 26:12-15:

12 When thou hast made an end of tithing all the tithes of thine increase the third year, which is the year of tithing, and hast given it unto the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, that they may eat within thy gates, and be filled;  13 Then thou shalt say before the LORD thy God, I have brought away the hallowed things out of mine house, and also have given them unto the Levite, and unto the stranger, to the fatherless, and to the widow, according to all thy commandments which thou hast commanded me:  I have not transgressed thy commandments, neither have I forgotten them:  14 I have not eaten thereof in my mourning, neither have I taken away ought thereof for any unclean use, nor given ought thereof for the dead:  but I have hearkened to the voice of the LORD my God, and have done according to all that thou hast commanded me.   15 Look down from thy holy habitation, from heaven, and bless thy people Israel, and the land which thou hast given us, as thou swarest unto our fathers, a land that floweth with milk and honey.

Two things can be seen from this passage: 1. The fact that the tithe was an hallowed thing. 2. The fact that in giving it the people could ask and trust God for a blessing. These two points run parallel with the issues God spoke of in Malachi 3 when he said that the people had robbed Him and that if they gave the tithes they will experience a blessing. The Deuteronomy 26 passage shows us that the commandment to tithe is under the Law of Moses. God had spoken of the tithe being His (Leviticus 27:30). So if anyone kept the tithe and not give it, he was keeping a hallowed thing that belonged to God in his house and thereby robbing God. If however he gave these tithes, he would be giving away God’s property and will be blessed in doing this.

Why then are Christians not obligated to do this? Because of what the tithe consisted of, whom the tithe was to be given to and where the tithe was to be taken to. In Leviticus 27:30-33, still under Moses’ laws, God spoke about the tithe for the first time. And in the process he told Israel what the tithe was to consist of. The tithe was to be “seed of the land”, “fruit of the tree” and the tenth of the herd. He went on in Numbers 18:21 to tell us whom the tithe was to be given to: it was to be given to the Levites who had no inheritance in Israel. The Lord was their inheritance and he had given them His tithe to inherit. When the Levites received the tithes, they in turn gave a tithe of the tithe to the Priests (Numbers 18:26). So when the Levites and Priests have been provided for with food, they would not have to go to their farms but would rather focus on performing their religious duties so that the worship of Jehovah in Israel will not suffer. One other point about the true tithe was that it was to be taken to the temple in Israel where the Levites and Priests operated. It is clear from all these that the tithes were agricultural product or “food” or “meat” as God Himself mentioned in Malachi 3, and not money. It is also clear that the tithe was to be given to Levites and not Pastors. And lastly it is clear that the tithe was to be taken to the temple and not churches.

Thus if Malachi 3:8-12 must be read in its true context it would be understood that that passage was a message to the Jewish church. A people who had just returned from captivity and after an initial time of revival under Ezra and Nehemiah, these people were becoming backslidden in their commitment to their religion, which was Judaism. Because the tithe, or food, was not coming into the temple as it should, the Levites and Priests were abandoning their duty posts and the religious life of the nation was suffering. God was calling them to bring the tithes and offerings to the temple so that religious life could be revived again. It was a clear word of instruction to the Jewish church and not an instruction to the Christian church. It is a part of the bible and Christians can learn the spiritual lessons of ensuring that they give to support Christian works wherever they can and that if they do not do so, such works will suffer; just as apostle Paul instructed us to do in 1 Corinthians 9. But to literally interpret Malachi 3: 8-10 as an instruction to Christians to pay 10% of their income to Churches and Pastors is to do injustice to scriptures as it is clear that there are hundreds of other old testament scripture that cannot be interpreted literally in this manner (we shall be looking at an example in Haggai later in the essay).

2 Chronicles 31

In the light of discussing Malachi 3, it is pertinent that we study this passage. This period is the time King Hezekiah ruled Judah. Israel and Judah had, prior to this time, backslidden. When Hezekiah came to the throne, he introduced religious reforms and encouraged Judah to serve God. He even went beyond his borders to call Israel, a nation not directly under his jurisdiction, but that was also in covenant with God, to return to the God of their fathers. The chapter opens with the people of Israel destroying all forms of idolatry in their country. Hezekiah then restores temple worship and encourages the Levites and Priests to return to their duty posts. To ensure they had sustenance, Hezekiah did this: “4 Moreover he commanded the people that dwelt in Jerusalem to give the portion of the priests and the Levites, that they might be encouraged in the law of the LORD.” The result was dramatic: the people responded immediately. They brought in offerings, first fruits and tithes. This went on from the third month until the seventh month. By the end of it all, a heap of food had piled up on the streets of Jerusalem; it was awesome. To ensure that the heap of food do not rot away on the streets, the King instructed that chambers were built in the temple to store these food items away. This is the origin of the “storehouse” God was speaking about in Malachi 3. It was first built under the reign of Hezekiah to store food items that the people brought as their tithes and offerings.

This shows the exact opposite of what was happening in Malachi 3. In 2 Chronicles 31, religious reforms were taking place and the result was that people obeyed the mosaic injunctions that commanded them to give tithes and offerings. In Malachi 3 the people had backslidden and the result was that the people did not bring tithes and offerings. What can be gleaned from all of this is the thesis I have been pursuing from the beginning of this essay which is that the commandment to give tithes in the bible is from the Mosaic laws and this is what Malachi 3 was reiterating. It is clear from the New Testament that Christians are not obligated to keep Moses’ laws (Hebrew 8:13; Romans 10:4). The next thing we must see from this passage is that tithes were never money but rather food items – “meat”. There is more than enough evidence to show that the Old Testament folks used money for various transaction but tithes were never given as money. The next thing we must see here is that tithing was a religious ordinance was inseparable from the temple and those who worked in it – the priests and Levites. The fact that Christians are the temple of the living God and the New Testament does not recognize church buildings as temples of worship points to another reason why we should not be tithing. It is abundantly clear that gentile Pastors are not Levites and Christians are not under any such obligation to give to churches or Pastors.

Nehemiah 10

In this passage of scripture Israel had just returned from captivity and religious life was being revived again. This is a period that is just preceding the period in which Malachi prophesied.  The following events will help us understand the true biblical tithe:

32 Also we made ordinances for us, to charge ourselves yearly with the third part of a shekel for the service of the house of our God;  33 For the showbread, and for the continual meat offering, and for the continual burnt offering, of the sabbaths, of the new moons, for the set feasts, and for the holy things, and for the sin offerings to make an atonement for Israel, and for all the work of the house of our God.   34 And we cast the lots among the priests, the Levites, and the people, for the wood offering, to bring it into the house of our God, after the houses of our fathers, at times appointed year by year, to burn upon the altar of the LORD our God, as it is written in the law:  35 And to bring the firstfruits of our ground, and the firstfruits of all fruit of all trees, year by year, unto the house of the LORD:  36 Also the firstborn of our sons, and of our cattle, as it is written in the law, and the firstlings of our herds and of our flocks, to bring to the house of our God, unto the priests that minister in the house of our God:  37 And that we should bring the firstfruits of our dough, and our offerings, and the fruit of all manner of trees, of wine and of oil, unto the priests, to the chambers of the house of our God;  and the tithes of our ground unto the Levites, that the same Levites might have the tithes in all the cities of our tillage.   38 And the priest the son of Aaron shall be with the Levites, when the Levites take tithes:  and the Levites shall bring up the tithe of the tithes unto the house of our God, to the chambers, into the treasure house.

Many things can be learnt from this passage. One of them is the fact the tithe is the product of the laws of Moses. The other thing is the fact that tithes and firstfruits were different items but were both food items (first fruits could also be first off strings of man and animals that were dedicated to God). We see here that the tithes were to be given to the Levites and the Levites in turn gave a tithe of the tithes they received to the Priest. We see here that the tithes received by the Priests were what are stored in the chambers or treasure house or storehouse (as Malachi called it). From this passage, some have come to the conclusion that if there was no food in the storehouse, it was because the Levites and Priests were not remitting the tithes they were receiving. This is true in a sense but looking at it strictly, we realize that the items in the storehouse were not tithes alone. There were offerings, firstfruits and dedicated things in the storehouse. So Malachi 3 should be seen in a general context of God rebuking the whole nation for backsliding and not keeping the laws of Moses that required people to give to temple. Everyone was guilty.

However, this does not subtract from the point I am trying to make here which is that the injunction in Malachi 3 was a message to the Jewish church and not to the Christian church, as many of the practices mentioned here, if related to other Old Testament scriptures, are practices under the Mosaic laws – laws that Christians are not obligated to keep.

Incidentally, by the end of the book of Nehemiah, Israel was again reneging on its obligation to give tithes and offerings and the Priest and Levites had to return to the field to fend for themselves:

10 And I perceived that the portions of the Levites had not been given them:  for the Levites and the singers, that did the work, were fled every one to his field.   11 Then contended I with the rulers, and said, Why is the house of God forsaken?  And I gathered them together, and set them in their place.   12 Then brought all Judah the tithe of the corn and the new wine and the oil unto the treasuries – Nehemiah 13.

Thankfully, Nehemiah saw that this error or anomaly was corrected in his time. It is not difficult then to reason that following Nehemiah’s governance, the nation of Israel would again have reneged in their duty to give the tithes and offerings, and the Levites and Priest must have returned to the fields. So that God would have to speak through Malachi that the tithes and offerings be brought to the temple.

All of these lend credence to our earlier theses that the passage in Malachi 3 is a message to the Jewish church under the Mosaic law and not a message to the Christian church.

Haggai 1

It is interesting to note that in the days in which Malachi prophesied there was another prophet of God who was speaking to the nation of Israel. Let us refer to this passage in Haggai 1:

3 Then came the word of the LORD by Haggai the prophet, saying, 4 Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your ceiled houses, and this house lie waste?  5 Now therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts;  Consider your ways.   6 Ye have sown much, and bring in little;  ye eat, but ye have not enough;  ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink;  ye clothe you, but there is none warm;  and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.   7 Thus saith the LORD of hosts;  Consider your ways.   8 Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house;  and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the LORD.   9 Ye looked for much, and, lo, it came to little;  and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it.   Why?  saith the LORD of hosts.   Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house.   10 Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit.   11 And I called for a drought upon the land, and upon the mountains, and upon the corn, and upon the new wine, and upon the oil, and upon that which the ground bringeth forth, and upon men, and upon cattle, and upon all the labour of the hands.

Here God is speaking to the nation of Israel trough Haggai. His grouse with them is not tithes and offerings but the building of the temple. The people understood that the temple was their national figure and unlike David who was earnest about erecting this temple, the people of Haggai’s days were not enthusiastic at all. They had returned from captivity and everyone was building his own house. God comes to them and instructs them to build the temple. He shows them that it is because they have refused to build the temple that they had not experienced His blessings. In the following chapter, we see that the people heeded Haggai words, built the temple and God was pleased with them and promised to bless them.

It is clear to any unprejudiced mind to see that this chapter of scripture was directed at a people in a particular period of time in their national life. The temple needed to be built for their religious life to resume; no temple, no worship. The point I am trying to make here is that when the Christian church reads this passage, it can see clearly that this message was not a message for the church. God never breathes down any one’s neck today to go and build a church; and church building is not a perquisite for blessings. Why do we not take Haggai 1, which has almost the same tenure as with Malachi 3, as a message to the church? The answer is simple: it is easy to see the context in which Haggai 1 was written. The next question then is: why do we not try to see Malachi 3 in the same context when we realize that these were two different messages sent to the same people by the same God? Could it be that our pursuit of pecuniary gain has made us blind to Malachi 3 while we see Haggai 1 clearly in its true context?

It is clear from these two passages of scriptures that biblical interpretation must be seen first in its true context. Who was the message originally meant for? What were the circumstances around them at that time? Is it a message that can equally be relayed to the Christian church or it is a message that is unique to Israel alone? Only when we can answer these questions adequately, can we truly make correct biblical interpretations. It is clear that just as it was in Haggai 1, so also was it in Malachi 3. It is clear from Malachi 3 and Haggai 1, that the message from these prophets were to Israel and not the church. The circumstance around those times shows a people under the law and who had just returned from captivity; they were backslidden and God was calling them back to true religious worship. It is therefore clear that the messages here are not instructions to the Christian church but messages to the Jewish church.

Colosians 2:16

16 Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:  17 Which are a shadow of things to come;  but the body is of Christ.   18 Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, 19 And not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God.   20 Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, 21 (Touch not;  taste not;  handle not;  22 Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men?  23 Which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body;  not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh.

Colosians 2:16 commands us not to allow anyone to judge us in regards to meat, drink, holy days, new moons, Sabbaths, etc. These things were a shadow but we have the reality in Christ.  While “meat” refers to what we eat, especially the Jewish injunction that they should not eat some animals, we realize that it was “meat” God mentioned in Malachi 3 and requested to be made available in the temple. It is safe to conclude that the “meat” mentioned in Colosians 2:16 must be all encompassing: thus including, meat sacrifices, meat eaten, meat given – which is tithes. In Nehemiah 10:33, the very list of items Paul is showing us in Colosians 2:16 are shadows of a reality in Christ, are the things the Jews were enumerating as their means of worshipping God:

 32 Also we made ordinances for us, to charge ourselves yearly with the third part of a shekel for the service of the house of our God;  33 For the showbread, and for the continual meat offering, and for the continual burnt offering, of the sabbaths, of the new moons, for the set feasts, and for the holy things, and for the sin offerings to make an atonement for Israel, and for all the work of the house of our God. - Nehemiah 10

It was in this passage the Jews mentioned tithes to be given to the Levites. It is very clear that if these other items are shadow of the reality in Christ, so also is the tithe. How the giving of tithes is singled out of a list of other Jewish practices that included the keeping of Sabbath, new moon, giving of first fruits, burnt offering, animal sacrifices, etc, can only be explained by modern day tithe merchants.

Right after Jesus’ resurrection, the apostles began to come to grasp with the fact that there has been a dispensational change of events in God’s dealing with all of humanity. It is the same God but who is using different means to bring about his purposes. First, Apostle Peter had a strange encounter with animals in a vision in Acts 10. God instructs Peter to kill and eat animals that naturally would have been forbidden under Moses’ laws. Peter replies he could not do it. Eventually he came to understand that the gospel had been sent to the gentiles and not to Jews alone. The man who would herald this gospel to the gentile, the Apostle Paul himself, helps us to comprehend this dispensational change in his numerous epistles written in the New Testament. The theme of one of them, Galatians, was Justification by Faith and not justification by the law. Hear Paul:

1 O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?  2 This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?  3 Are ye so foolish?  having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?  4 Have ye suffered so many things in vain?  if it be yet in vain.   5 He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?  6 Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.   7 Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.   8 And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.   9 So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.   10 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse:  for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.   11 But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident:  for, The just shall live by faith.   12 And the law is not of faith:  but, The man that doeth them shall live in them.   13 Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us:  for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:  14 That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ;  that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.   15 Brethren, I speak after the manner of men;  Though it be but a man's covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth, or addeth thereto.   16 Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made.   He saith not, And to seeds, as of many;  but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.   17 And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect.   18 For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise:  but God gave it to Abraham by promise.   19 Wherefore then serveth the law?  It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made;  and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator – Galatians 3

Paul’s challenge with the men of his time was bringing them to understand that there has been a dispensational change in God’s dealing with men. God gave the law to Moses and in practicing it, the Jews had Judaism. But grace and truth came with Jesus Christ and the implication of his death and resurrection was a life of faith that cannot be practiced using Judaism – we are now Christians. So Paul took great pain to distinguish between Christianity and Judaism. While Judaism required the keeping of the law, Christianity commanded us to walk in faith, a faith that works through love. So Christians are not obligated to keep Jewish rituals that will include tithing.

But the biggest blow to the subject of tithing came a little while after Paul had written his epistles. It came in AD 70. Even in the days Jesus walked the earth, the Jews had resented the Romans ruling them. Rome ruled most of the ancient world in those days. The Jews had rejected Jesus partly because he did not fit into the picture of one who would deliver them from the Romans’ oppression. They continued to forbear under the Romans until they had had enough. There was an insurrection and Roman soldiers were killed. Caesar then sent General Titus to deal with these recalcitrant Jews. After days of laying siege to Jerusalem, he eventually gained access and the Jews were massacred. The temple was destroyed and the very few Jews that survived were dispersed into Europe. So from AD 70 until AD 1948, there was no temple for the Jews to send their tithes and offerings to. In God’s providential dealing with the Jews, he destroyed the temple He Himself had instructed them to build and bring tithes and offerings to. The reason was that the physical temple at Jerusalem was obsolete now that Jesus, the very temple of God, was alive and well, functioning as God’s true High Priest in heaven. From these events in AD 70, God himself was saying that Malachi 3:8-12 is defunct and obsolete. The injunction in that scripture was to bring tithes and offering to the temple’s storehouse; when there is no temple, there cannot be a storehouse; and certainly tithes and offering will not be offered in that place.

Matthew 21:13

Who then is robbing God today? The men robbing God today are those who teach that Christians are obligated to bring tithes and offerings to church. Those who preach that the tithe is money and Christians are obligated to pay a tenth of their income are robbing God’s people of their resources and in extension robbing God. Many of them are robbing God out of ignorance, not knowing the scriptures; others know the truth but the love of money will not permit them to obey it. God spoke of a certain type of robbers under the Law of Moses in Malachi 3. In Matthew 21:13, Jesus speaks of a new type of robbers:

12 And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, 13 And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer;  but ye have made it a den of thieves.   14 And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple;  and he healed them.

There are robbers in the church of Jesus Christ today in the same manner as He found robbers in the temple in His time on earth. They specialize in collecting money in the name of religion. They preach money. They live money. They ask people to bring money in exchange of blessings. They are thieves and robbers in the church and they are the ones who have changed the holy tithes of the living God that was to be given to Levites to monetary tithes that should be given to Pastors. Unlike Christ who healed the blind and the lame, and ensured that the weak and poor were catered for, these men take from the poor asking them to sow “dangerously” so they may reap a reward. These men are thieves and robbers in God’s house, and their judgment lingers not.

In conclusion, I wish to reiterate that Christians are not obligated to give a tenth of their income in the name of tithing to a church. Tithing is a Jewish religious practice that is defunct and obsolete following the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law. Christians may give as they feel led by God to – what can be appropriately called free will giving.

I trust God to give us all increased understanding of what true Christian giving consists of.

(In subsequent papers on this subject of tithing I shall be discussing giving in the church and how it must be done).